On land and sea, they traversed all corners of the world, opening doors for modern women of adventure.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Mary Henrietta Kingsley ~ Explorer

Mary Henrietta Kingsley (October 13, 1862 – June 3, 1900) was an English writer and explorer who greatly influenced European ideas about Africa and African people. She was born in Islington, London on October 13, 1862 the daughter and oldest child of doctor, traveler and writer George Kingsley and Mary Bailey and niece of novelists Charles Kingsley and Henry Kingsley.

A year after her birth, her family moved to Highgate where her brother Charles George R. (Charley) Kingsley was born in 1866. By 1881 they were living in Southwood House, Bexley in Kent. Her father, a doctor who worked for George Herbert, 13th Earl of Pembroke and other aristocrats, was regularly away from home on his excursions. During these voyages he was able to collect information for his studies.

Between 1870 and 1875 Dr. Kingsley and Lord Dunraven ventured to North America where Kingsley was offered the opportunity to join American General Custer and his men into Native American lands. Later reports describing the massacre of Custer's party left the Kingsley family at home in England terrified, but they were relieved to later discover that bad weather had kept Dr. Kingsley from joining the Custer party. It’s likely that her father's views on the injustices faced by the Native Americans helped shape Mary's later opinions on British imperialism in West Africa.

Mary was neither baptized nor brought up as a Christian. She had little formal schooling other than German lessons at a young age, but she did have access to her father's large library and loved to hear her father's stories of foreign countries. "I don't know if I revealed to you that fact that being allowed to learn German was all the paid-for education I ever had. Two thousand pounds was spent on my brother's, I still hope not in vain." (The Life of Mary Kingsley by Stephen Gwynne). She didn’t enjoy novels that were deemed more appropriate for young ladies of the time, such as those by Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte, but preferred books on the sciences and memoirs of explorers. Charley, however, was sent to school and entered Christ's College in 1886 with the intent to become a lawyer, allowing Mary the chance to make several academic connections and a few friends.

The 1891 England census finds Mary's mother and her two children living at 7 Mortimer Road, Cambridge, where Charles is recorded as a BA Student at Law and Mary as a Student of Medicine. In her later years, Mary's mother became ill and Mary was expected to care for her well-being. She was unable to leave her mother's side for more than a few hours and therefore had limited travel opportunities. Her father also became bedridden with rheumatic fever after an excursion. Dr. Kingsley died in February 1892 as did Mrs. Kingsley the following April.

Freed from her family responsibilities and with an inheritance of £8,600 to be split evenly with her brother, Mary was now able to travel as she dreamed. She decided to visit Africa to collect the material she would need to finish off a book that her father had started on the culture of the people of Africa. After a preliminary visit to the Canary Islands, Mary made preparations to travel to the west coast of Africa. The only non-African women who regularly embarked on (often dangerous) journeys to Africa were usually the wives of missionaries, government officials or explorers, a stereotype which she struggled to overcome throughout her lifetime. Exploration and adventure were not seen as fitting roles for a Victorian woman. Even African women were astonished that a woman of Mary's age was traveling without a man, as she was frequently asked why her husband was not accompanying her.

She landed in Sierra Leone on August 17, 1893 and pressed on into Luanda in Angola where she lived with local people who taught her necessary skills for surviving in the dangerous African jungle where she often ventured alone. Her training as a nurse at the Kaiserworth Medical Institute prepared her for slight injuries and jungle maladies that she would later encounter. Mary returned to England in December 1893.

Upon her return to England, Mary secured support and aid from Dr. Albert Günther, a prominent zoologist at the British Museum, as well as a writing agreement with publisher George Macmillan for her travel accounts. She returned to Africa in December 1894 with more support and supplies, as well as increased self assurance in her work. She longed to study 'cannibal' peoples and their traditional religious practices, commonly referred to as fetish during the Victorian Era.

The following April she became acquainted with Scottish missionary Mary Slessor, another female living among native populations with little company and no husband. It was during her meeting with Slessor that Kingsley first became painfully aware of the custom of twin killing, a custom Slessor was determined to stop. The native people believed that one of the twins was the offspring of the devil who had secretly mated with the mother and since the innocent child was impossible to distinguish, both were killed and the mother was often killed as well for attracting the devil to impregnate her. Kingsley arrived at Slessor's residence shortly after she had taken in a recent mother of twins and her surviving child.

Later, in Gabon, Mary traveled by canoe up the Ogooué River where she collected specimens of previously unknown fish, three which were later named after her. After meeting the Fang people and traveling through uncharted Fang territory, she climbed the daring 13,760 ft. Mount Cameroon by a route not previously attempted by any other European. She is known to have moored her boat at Donguila.

When she returned to England in November 1895, Mary was greeted by journalists who were eager to interview her. The reports that were drummed up about her voyage however were most upsetting to her, as the papers portrayed her as a "New Woman", an image which she did not embrace. Mary distanced herself from any feminist movement claims, arguing that she had never worn trousers during her expedition and even denounced equality for women in scholarly societies. She dressed conservatively and tried to avoid any more controversy than her studies already attracted her.

Over the next three years, she toured the country giving lectures about life in Africa to a wide array of audiences. She was the first woman to address the Liverpool and Manchester chambers of commerce.

Mary upset the Church of England when she criticized missionaries for attempting to change the people of Africa. She talked about, and indeed defended, many aspects of African life that had shocked many English people, including polygamy. For example explaining the "seething mass of infamy, degradation and destruction going on among the Coast native... [as] the natural consequence of the breaking down of an ordered polygamy into a disordered monogamy". She argued that a "black man is no more an undeveloped white man than a rabbit is an undeveloped hare" as well asserting that she did not regard "the native form as 'low' or 'inferior'... but as a form of mind of a different sort to white men's - a very good form of mind too, in its way." After living with the African people, Mary became directly aware how their societies functioned and how prohibiting customs such as polygamy would be detrimental to their way of life. She knew that the typical African wives had too many tasks to manage alone and did not view their marriage situations as cruel or unfair. Missionaries in Africa often required converted men to abandon all but one of their wives, this leaving the other women and children without the support of a husband. Despite these seemingly radical views on justifying African ways of life, she was fairly conservative on other issues and did not support the women's suffrage movement.

She wrote two books about her experiences: Travels in West Africa (1897), which was an immediate best-seller, and West African Studies (1899). Both granted her vast respect and prestige within the scholarly community. Some newspapers refused to publish reviews of her works, such as the Times colonial editor Flora Shaw, likely on the grounds that her beliefs countered the imperialistic intentions of the British Empire and the commonly accepted notion that African natives were inferior peoples. It’s likely that she refrained from any suffrage connections in order to ensure her work was received favorably.

During the Second Boer War, Mary travelled to Cape Town and volunteered as a nurse. She was stationed at Simon's Town hospital, where she treated Boer prisoners of war. After contributing her services to the ill for about two months, she developed symptoms of typhoid and died on June 3, 1900. In accordance with her wishes, she was buried at sea.

Mary’s tales and opinions of life in Africa helped draw attention to British imperial agendas abroad and the native customs of African people that were previously little discussed or misunderstood by the European masses. The Fair Commerce Party formed soon after her death, pressuring for improved conditions for the natives of British colonies. Various reform associations were formed in her honour and helped facilitate governmental change. The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine founded an honorary medal in her name. Her understanding and empathy for the native African people and their interests, along with her stance on their so called "savage" way of life earned her unwanted fame and an unmerited label as a feminist, an image she countered whenever given the chance.